


Rolling with the Punches

by SunnyD_lite



Category: SGA - Fandom
Genre: Set in late season 4, team fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-11
Updated: 2008-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens to the team if they become rolling stones? With no satisfaction in sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rolling with the Punches

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: John makes reference to lines from T.S. Eliot's [The Hollow Men](http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/) Other Notes found at the end.   
> Prompt: **tamingthemuse**'s prompt 116 "A rolling stone crushes toes"

"A rolling stone crushes toes," intoned Ronon. In answer to their looks of confusion, he forced himself to elaborate. "Satedian military saying. If you're not in your assigned spot, bad things happen."

"Bad things." He can almost see the hand gesture they call air quotes that McKay wanted to put around those words. "That's well and good, but we don't HAVE an assigned spot, and how asinine is that concept anyway?" McKay grumbled, reassuring the team that they were still who they were. Only not.

"McKay, military," drawled Sheppard.

"And that's apropos to what? Oh never mind. Let me think." With that McKay stomped over to the crashed puddle jumper and began muttering and puttering away.

"We need shelter," Weir spoke up. Ronon noted that she looked oddly lost without the context of her office or the gateroom. Not team, but still there. He didn't miss how Sheppard bridled –in a way he's sure only he and Teyla noticed, before fake relaxing and turning towards the expedition leader.

"True, but this is a bit of a novel situation. A field situation."

There was quiet, the kind between thunder claps. In the background, McKay kept up a soundtrack of mutterings. Ronon itched to check the perimeter, but he'd learned the hard way to face the biggest danger head on.

A moment passed, then Teyla waved an arm towards the shuttle. "Should we not inventory our supplies? It is unlikely that we will be in a position to restock soon."

Ronon felt his shoulders loosen up as the stares moved first towards Teyla and then towards the jumper. This wasn't settled, he knew, merely postponed. But he could live with that.

#

Rodney had of course grasped the situation first. Years of hacking into the SGC for missions reports meant that he had a good idea of what would happen. Except 'bury the gate' didn't work so well when they didn't have a home base with a gate to start with. Not that he thought either O'Neill really meant it.

As Rodney examined the downed jumper, he couldn't imagine what Sheppard was going through. It was one thing to fly into a hive ship for the greater good, but to purposely allow his jumper to be damaged? That had to hurt even more viscerally than when they'd watched the city— he forced himself to pay attention to the diagnostics running on his tablet. A tablet the other Rodney had given him. Just his luck, finally someone who could follow his, admittedly brilliant thoughts and-- He'd quickly glanced at the gear they'd stored and it seemed unmoved despite the acrobatics Sheppard had put them through. Shaken not stirred indeed.

If he could get it to the jumper bay, he had an idea that Radek could work on.

But Radek wouldn't be working with him anymore. None of his morons would. Oh god, Jeannie. They'd just started to patch things up and now. A spark from a loose wire distracted him, or called his attention back. Deep breath. They needed the jumper. Whatever else might or might not be true, Dr. Rodney McKay fixed things. This was a thing. He could fix it. He had to.

#

Leadership was about balancing priorities. This truth flowed through her veins and manifested in all aspects of her life from the banto rods, to serving both her people and those of Atlantis who'd become her people too.

People who no longer required that service. It was, unbalancing was the only fitting word. Luckily her team still needed her and she let that need anchor her, pushing what was too big to consider away—for now.

"We require food," she pointed out, testing the limits of their new reality. There had been food, of that much she was certain. She and Elizabeth started to sort through the cargo. Sheppard hovered, shooting glances between them and where Rodney was working with the crystals.

Finally she turned to meet his eyes. After a moment he sighed.

"Fine. Ronon and I will just check the perimeter." He stabbed his thumb out the back of the shuttle and removed himself, and his nervous energy, from the small area.

Elizabeth waited until he was clear before smiling at her. "Thank you. And I thought that he was bad during admin meetings."

They both chuckled , remembering commiserating on that very topic many times before, and continued. They may be false memories, but she was holding tight to them. As tight as she clung to each physical item she touched, trying to prove that she is here. She resisted the impulse to check for her scars, to prove to herself that this body was hers.

This body. There was another body out there, one with a life. She had a life, but as she had said to Ronon, they could not take back what was not theirs.

Her responsibilities defined her. She'd gladly added to them before. She was unmoored, and, as Ronon said, unmoored people were dangerous.

She'd lived her entire life with uncertainty. When the next culling would be, would trading partners still be at the other side of the Ring. She'd been amused at the Lateans belief in the knowable. Their need for certainty.

Now, the uncertainty terrified her.

#

Sitting in the back of a jumper wasn't one of her usual tasks. Novel situation, John did have the gift of understatement. It balanced Rodney's hyperboles, which often turned out to not be so hyper. She observed the team dynamic. Watching both had been eerily like reflections. Not fun house mirrors either. But, as the child song went, the cheese stands alone. That's who'd she'd been.

A ghost. One who'd dashed the hope that she'd seen in John's, Atlantis' John's eyes. That's what she was to Atlantis. She watched as Teyla relaxed into their task, but the jumper wasn't a safe haven for her. Its grey walls couldn't replace the domes of greens and blues that were her home. She'd brokered deals between factions who'd determined identity by the land they lived or by the language they spoke. She'd always known who she was, embraced her strengths and weaknesses – a diplomat had to know what to show and what to hide. She had honed her skills walking the tightrope between the IOA and the military, looking to protect both Earth and her City.

They'd seen their City destroyed. The fact another Atlantis stood didn't fill that void. If you were the one who was dead, did you have the right to mourn? Should she suggest a commemorative service for those they would never see again? The mutterings of McKay pulled her from her thoughts. His constant vocalizations were an annoyance, but one Teyla seemed oblivious to, or maybe she'd merely built up a tolerance to her teammate.

Elizabeth was no longer in charge of the City. Her response to a worried McKay just showed that she wasn't part of Sheppard's team.

A hand grabbed her wrist, offering her a point of contact, a focus for this reality. "Thanks again," she whispered to Teyla. Teyla who'd given her this chance to find her footing, not only in the world but with these people. The old dynamics wouldn't work, but could she create new dynamics that would?

"A field situation," Sheppard had said. Not that they hadn't butted heads before, but then she'd been sure of her ground. Now, nothing was sure. She'd seen the way Teyla had diffused the situation, had noticed her doing that 'Before'. Not that before had actually happened. Or at least not for them.

Just when she thought Pegasus couldn't send her anything stranger.

#

They could have split up, but he'd wanted the reassurance of someone familiar at his back. It wasn't a necessary patrol. That nuke sent through the gate had done its intended job, masking the area from immediate detection and destroying the full replicators on the ground. The battered puddle jumper had protected them once again.

But now what? That was the last aid Atlantis could render. The others had been surprised, but it's what he would have done. If you had to leave someone behind, give them every chance possible. It was the reason he'd be busted down ranks before, but this felt more like when they'd been exiled. His people, his City—weren't. The only people he had to protect now were in the jumper that he and Ronon kept circling. And Teyla could kick his ass any day of the week.

"We should find water. Not sure if it'll be toxic. McKay will know."

Ronon nodded, then peeled off. Sheppard remembered the cleanness of orders. The satisfaction in being able to complete a task.

Thinking. Rodney would say it wasn't his strong suit. Both of them knew that was a mis-evaluation. Despite SGA's attempts at orientation, he counted his life time love of science fiction as the best preparation for Pegasus; one he wished he could use as a qualifier for new recruits. Not that he'd have to worry about the newbies any more. It was like Antarctica, but even there he'd had his assigned flights. Command had grown on him, and he didn't quite know who he was without it.

None of them knew who they were. Not puppets. Not paralyzed force, gesture without motion. McKay never gestured without motion. He wasn't hollow, damn it. None of them were, even if he felt gutted.

It was time to re-invent himself. Re-invent themselves. Weir had persuaded the Replicators to let them go, so that they could make a difference.

No matter what the others, McKay had labeled them version 1.0s, thought, his team wasn't part of death's kingdom. He wouldn't let them be.

They had time now. An unusual luxury. Time to re-assess. Time to re-create. Time to mourn what was lost, and time to plan new ways to protect this galaxy that was their home.

He'd been called a loner. Insubordinate. A lifetime as an authorized nomad had made being a rolling stone second nature. It was time to start crushing his enemies' toes.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N2: **pogrebin**'s meta on SGA's "This Mortal Coil"(4x10) [here](http://pogrebin.livejournal.com/63294.html) plus the SG-1 episode "Double Jeopardy " (4x21) made me think. Add this quirky prompt (and voila story.


End file.
